How did this come about? We (Christie and Netta) are friends, colleagues, and collaborators. We first got to know each other by running a retreat together for a week in the UK, where we found ourselves talking in the pond and the field and the living room about our passions for exploring our psyches and relationships through parts-work. The process we undertook to write this blog post has been a very fun, confusing, and tangled adventure of meeting for hours over Zoom, trading sessions, experimenting between our practices, and sharing resources.
Disclaimers from Netta, an Internal Family Systems practitioner, and Christie, a Voice Dialogue practitioneWhile both of us are committed practitioners of our respective practices, because of the ambitiousness of each of our practices and the task of comparing them, we offer the following disclaimers:
- We hereby decline any responsibility for a full and universally-agreed-upon conception of Internal Family Systems (labeled IFS throughout this writing) and/or Voice Dialogue (labeled VD throughout this writing). Both these practices are incredibly sophisticated and we recognise that we offer our subjective takes on how to make sense of and use each of them.
- We hereby decline any responsibility for a full comparison of IFS and VD. We’re simply going to cover some of our juiciest takeaways from the conversations and session trades we’ve conducted together. We acknowledge this is a very incomplete account of all the comparisons that could be made between IFS and VD.
We hope you find this comparison as fascinating as we do, and find inspiration to explore your own inner world with these tools. If you’re a clinician, we hope you find inspiration to expand some of your practices and consider studying these methods more deeply.
Here’s a quick glossary of the terms we will use in this writing:
Internal Family Systems Glossary
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- Blending: Fully embodying your parts, experiencing and expressing their perspectives from within. For example: “I am furious at my neighbor!”
- Unblending: Speaking on behalf of your parts without fully embodying their experience. For example: “I have a part who feels furious at my neighbor.”
- Direct Access: The facilitator communicates directly with the parts, and the parts respond to the facilitator. In VD, this is termed “part-to-facilitator.” For example, “Tell me more about your furiousness–what elicited it?”
- Indirect Access: The facilitator engages with the client about their parts, and the client communicates internally with their parts and reports back to the facilitator. In VD, this is termed “part-to-Center.” For example, “Can you ask this part to tell you more about their furiousness?”
- Self Energy: In the IFS model, Self is at the core of each of us. It is an energy that embodies qualities such as calmness, compassion, curiosity, and confidence, and it comes through when we unblend from our parts. The goal of IFS is to put parts in connection with Self (the client’s Self primarily, and the therapist’s Self too), to support their healing.
Voice Dialogue Glossary
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- Ego: This can initially be a confusing word, loaded with different meanings through different spiritual and psychoanalytic concepts. In Voice Dialogue, ego means the sense of “I,” the aspect of me that is beyond any of my parts.
- Operating Ego: This is me acting through life without a sense of inner freedom. Whether or not I am conscious of the different parts in me, they seem to act without me having any control over them. Example: “I can’t seem to stop wanting to please everyone.”
- The Aware Ego Process (sometimes called “Center”): I am aware of the different parts in me that become enlivened in each moment, and I can choose to allow them to be active in me or I can place them further away from me energetically. I can also call in any part I need at a given moment. Example: calling in a reassuring grandmother figure that I have met in previous sessions. Cultivating Aware Ego is the aim of the VD process.
- Linkage: In the world of Voice Dialogue, linkage refers to the process of the facilitator consciously connecting with the felt experience of various inner parts during a dialogue. The facilitator continuously checks to ensure they remain energetically present and attuned to the embodied experience of each part, rather than becoming disconnected or removed from the flow of the interaction.
- DJ: The DJ work refers to a process at the end of VD sessions where the facilitator shows the client how they can consciously decide how much or how little of parts’ energies they want to bring into their current life or specific situation. This allows the client to intentionally balance the influences of different parts energetically
Netta’s Harvests from Voice Dialogue as an IFS Practitioner
After spending many hours dialoguing and playing between the practices of Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Voice Dialogue (VD) with my colleague Christie Animas, a Voice Dialogue practitioner, I have so far been focusing on four main takeaways that I am curious to integrate into my IFS work. They are:
- The way Voice Dialogue privileges blending and direct access to facilitate knowing the part thoroughly and experientially, from the inside out
- The theory of unreconciled opposites – the expectation that paradox is present and persistent, and so each part has its opposite energy somewhere inside
- The DJ work – inquiring towards the ends of sessions about how much or how little of parts’ energies the client wants, and practicing these shifts
- The notion of linkage – the invitation in Voice Dialogue for the facilitator to check on their felt energetic connection to the client’s experience (similar but distinct in my opinion from checking for access to Self Energy)
1. Voice Dialogue privileges blending and direct access to facilitate knowing each part thoroughly and experientially, from the inside out
I’ll share an example to show what I mean. Christie and I were talking over Zoom about what would feel rich to us in investigating the comparison between our two practices. As we discussed our ideas, I started to feel overwhelmed by all the options – some of them seemed impractical or like they would take way too long. We decided to explore my overwhelm through a practice session of VD, with Christie facilitating. Christie asked what I wanted to explore, and what I noticed was a part who looked like a tractor, chug-chug-chugging forward through a field. In the field were many moles, eagerly jumping out of their holes to share ideas for what Christie and I could do together. The tractor’s job was to collect only the ideas that seemed imminently doable, contained, and cohesive in combination with one another, and to consolidate them into a plan.
When I identified this tractor part, Christie invited me to find it in space around me, asking whether it’s behind, in front, to the left, or to the right of my body. I adjusted my physical position to be slightly above and behind where I was sitting. Christie then said, “Hello, tractor part,” implicitly guiding me to fully embody the part rather than just report on it. Christie engaged in conversation with me-as-the-part, and as I continued to respond from it, we together learned about its tone – all business, concise and unapologetic; its body positioning – upright and slightly tense, making eye contact; and its sense of humor – snarky, but warm.
In contrast, the IFS approach favors initially describing what the part communicates inside, rather than embodying and blending with it in a prolonged way. The IFS therapist might have said, after I identified the tractor part, “How are you noticing the part in this moment? Is it showing up in or around the body in some way?” Perhaps I would reply, “I notice it above and behind me.” So far, very similar to Voice Dialogue. But then the IFS therapist might say, “Ok, feeling the energy of that part above and behind you, can you ask the part to tell you more about itself?” My response to such a question would be in third person, something like: “The part is saying that it’s anxious to whittle things down. It wants us to be practical.”
Sometimes, parts do “blend” on purpose in the IFS flow, but most of the time not in the way they do in VD. VD corrects for unblending. If I speak for my part, saying something like, “The tractor wants to remain practical,” Christie corrects me by asking, “So you want to help Netta be more practical? What’s important about that for you?” This prompts re-embodiment of the part. Although this embodiment might feel forced or awkward initially, it often reveals profound insights and opens up into authentic experiences, allowing me to experience the part’s emotions, wisdom, tone, and body language from within.
This approach can offer more detailed information for both the client and the facilitator compared to the ‘indirect access’ in IFS. When I blend with the tractor part, Christie can detect what the part might like to be drawn out about, and areas of murkiness where multiple parts might be present and masquerading as one. Just as I get to know the part more deeply through embodiment, so does Christie; her relationship with my part is less mediated.
One question I have is how to balance the embodiment found in VD with the benefits of the client’s Self-to-parts communication in IFS. I am interested in integrating these practices to help clients discern when to persist in embodying their parts, despite any initial awkwardness or feelings of overexposure, in order to gain a deeper and more intimate understanding of their parts’ emotions and perspectives. I am curious to explore when it might be more suitable to shift to unblending, a process that can offer different intimacies, both in serving the relationship between the client’s Self and the client’s parts, and through transmission of nonverbal communication from the parts, such as images and memories.
2. The theory of “unreconciled opposites” – the expectation that paradox is present and persistent, and so each part has its opposite energy somewhere inside
VD, like IFS, does not search for wholeness, unity, or integration of the parts, and is completely fine with unreconciled opposites. In fact, VD is premised on the theory that paradox exists in every area of life and that each part has an opposite.
IFS is compatible with this notion but doesn’t offer it up as a concrete theory or expectation. IFS follows clients’ parts’ desires, and they often lead to reckoning with their opposites, typically with a hope for reconciliation or finding a middle road. Consequently, when I facilitate polarization work in IFS, I experience it as a mediated conversation similar to couples therapy that may land in embracing paradox, but not necessarily. In VD, polarization work feels more like a juxtaposition of two dances.
In VD, once polarities have been constellated and explored, there are many ways for the client to navigate them. The client can observe a polarity from their “Aware Ego” position, or from a witnessing position; the client can place their polarized parts closer to or farther from themselves in space; they can adapt the intensity of the parts’ presence through the DJ process. The hope is for the client to decide how much of each part’s presence and gifts are needed in their situation.
Since learning of this theoretical stance in VD, and the accompanying DJ work, I have found it useful during IFS polarization work to explicitly name that paradox is everywhere and unreconciled opposites are to be expected. When a client doesn’t yet name a polarization, I have found it helpful to hold in my own awareness the existence of an opposite to whatever it is we are working with. I find the VD process of organically uncovering polarization fascinating. As Christie shared:
The polarity of a part comes by itself in its own time. I had this incredible experience in one of my first Voice Dialogue sessions where I was exploring a young part of me who felt devastated and full of grief for not having ever had a dad at home. Peter, my facilitator, validated the experience of this part again and again, and invited me to stay with how I felt there. I felt the devastation in my young body. At a certain point, the previous sense started to disappear and Peter invited me to stay deeply attuned with this change. I felt my body wanting to turn the opposite way very, very slowly. I then started to feel my forehead furrowing and my body getting bigger, powerful and fiery. I had the impression of being in the woods, with creatures like me around me. I became a pack of wolves in their fiercest and wildest protective expression. It felt exhilarating and out of this world. I felt protective of the other young part and ready to express and defend whatever was needed. I can still access this pack of wolves in my body whenever I need to protect myself. Once I go to the depth of a polarity, I seem to access a switch or a door which gives access to a total polarity going forward. I find this is true for my clients, too, and that this is a deeply humbling and incredible experience for them and for me
3. The DJ work – inquiring towards the ends of sessions about how much or how little of parts’ energies a client wants, and practicing these shifts
Towards the end of a VD session, the facilitator may do some DJ work with the client to empower them to choose which parts’ gifts they want to engage with and to what extent. Going back to the example of my tractor choosing ideas that it likes from the field of moles, Christie asks towards the end of our session, “How much of this part’s energy do you feel when you’re at work, on a scale from 1-10?”
“I would say a 5”
“And how much would you like to feel?”
“Maybe closer to a 3 or 4”
“Ok, see if you can embody a 3 or 4 scale of the tractor now, and just notice how that feels.”
Having formed some friendship with the part, the client practices collaborating with the part to invite its skills and personality to the extent that it seems to benefit the system as a whole. I find it compelling to potentially incorporate this at the end of IFS sessions. I like how this process honors the strengths and abilities of different parts, and creates a felt experience in sessions of different calibrations of the parts.
4. The notion of linkage – the invitation in Voice Dialogue for the facilitator to check on their felt energetic connection to the client’s experience
In VD, the facilitator is instructed to maintain a sense of linkage with the client’s parts. This involves actively resonating with the lived experience of the parts they are working with, rather than maintaining a distant or removed stance. This might mean feeling what the client is feeling, or tapping into a personal experience in which they felt something similar to the client. This could also involve noticing the opposite polarity inside, and tapping into that experience to bring it more into the energetic field between therapist and client. The idea is that by feeling into the polarity, the facilitator makes the opposite more available in the client’s system as well.
After learning about the VD concept of linkage, I found myself thinking about it often in sessions with my clients. While it shares some similarities with the IFS therapist’s invitation to stay connected with their own Self energy, I find linkage to be more specific. Sometimes, for me, the invitation to maintain a stance of Self Energy can feel more permissive of a detached stance towards the parts in comparison with linkage. I don’t think the IFS notion of Self Energy invites this kind of distance or detachment, but for whatever reason, in my system, I sometimes feel permission to feel distantly or generally compassionate without resonating more deeply with the client. When I access this linkage in sessions, I feel the integrity of joining with the client’s lived experience. I find it can catalyze the client to tap more deeply into the emotion of their part, or into the polarity between the part they’re channeling and its opposite.
Christie’s Harvests from Internal Family Systems as a VD Practitioner
In my exploration of the IFS process with Netta and its fascinating comparison with the VD process, I have many inspirations and reflections about these two different processes of entering and tending to one’s own psyche. At this point, through my personal experience, I feel able to articulate and harvest from two main aspects of the IFS process:
(1) The “Self” quality, or as I like to call it, the “Inner Hearth”
(2) The “Self-to-part” interaction, which I like to call “Inner Facilitation”
I have been inspired by the way IFS names different types of relational dynamics between the Self of the client, the Self of the therapist, and the parts of the client. An important yet confusing note: VD refers to “parts” as “selves.” To hopefully ease the comparison of IFS and VD, I’m going to use the term “parts” throughout this writing rather than “selves.” Here are the different relational dynamics that we use in VD.
- Ego-to-Facilitator: The client communicates from the center place (not in a part) directly with the facilitator. They will fluctuate between the Operating Ego and Aware Ego.
- Part-to-Facilitator: The client communicates from a part directly to the facilitator.
- Part-to-Ego: At the end of an exploration of a part, the facilitator might ask a part if they want to say anything to the client. In that case the part will talk directly to the client’s “ego.”
- Part-to-Part or Inner Parenting: If a child part and a parent/caring figure have been constellated during a session, the client is invited at the end of a session to feel both parts at the same time in the Aware Ego process. The parts will be felt in their unique ways through the body and energetic imprint. The client will be able to direct their awareness to investigate how the child part is receiving the caring part and how the caring part is receiving the child’s presence. There is no verbal conversation, but rather a relating through the somatic, emotional, and energetic senses. This process can be done only once each part has been embodied and explored individually with the help of the facilitator.
The main aspects I have harvested so far from IFS:
(1) The “Self” quality, or “Inner Hearth”
During my sessions with Netta as IFS facilitator, as I first started to notice a part through an emotion or sensation and named it to Netta, Netta asked me the question, “How do you feel towards this part?”
This created an immediate separation from the part itself and an experience in me of an inner place in relation to this part. What I felt towards the part was an embodied sense of warmth, potency, spaciousness, and soft strength – this is what in IFS is called “Self Energy.” This “Self” gives me the feeling of an “inner hearth, holding, or base” from which to relate and to explore my psyche. It offers a quality of warmth, presence, constant interaction, and connection that feels grounding and nourishing. This experience feels new for me. In VD, the “Aware Ego process” is the center of the psyche, which offers a space of awareness, presence, and choice. There isn’t primarily a quality of intimate relating with this kind of presence that IFS proposes.
In VD, the “holding feeling” or “Self” presence is first created by relating with the facilitator for the main part of the session. I named this “Part to Facilitator” interaction. The client holds their parts at the end of the session. Here is the progression:
At the start of the session, the client is in what we call “the Center” or “Ego space.” Then they move to different spots around them to embody the different parts we are exploring. In between the explorations of each part, the client comes back to the Center. At the end of the session, the client can relate to the parts that are placed around them in an energetic way. In this way they are present with all their parts. The client is also able to bring holding to any parts that still feel in need of holding. The client does this by allowing a caring figure to meet and come in presence with a more vulnerable one, holding both in their awareness, and feeling both in their bodies.
I see the IFS approach of bringing “Self Energy” in early on and keeping it around in dialogue throughout the session as quite different from the VD flow just described, and I’m curious to continue comparing the effects of each.
(2) The “Self-to-part” interaction, or “Inner Facilitation”
From this differentiation between a part and the Self, an inner relation starts to build inside me. Netta progressively asks me a set of questions: “Is it okay to feel what this part is feeling? If so, can you let the part know? How is the part responding to you saying that the way they feel is okay?, …” This kind of relating encourages a part to reveal more of itself inwardly, directly to me, in the “Self.” I relate with them and learn how I can meet them and accommodate their experience. This is called the ‘Self-to-part’ interaction in IFS.
Since having had those IFS sessions with Netta, I have been inspired in my own process to use this type of direct interaction when something challenging arises for me in day-to-day life. It has given me a newly direct, effective, warm, and intimate way to relate to my parts and for my parts to feel my presence with them.
Usually, following the VD process, I give space to my parts by going totally inside them–by becoming them–which gives me access to a depth of experience and expression, often with swift emotional release. While I do this, I stay aware that I am in a part, yet there isn’t the constant relational component that the Self-to-part interaction offers.
In my work with clients, I am curious about the possibility of teaching clients, alongside the VD process, to self-facilitate in the IFS form to meet the ever-changing emotional states of their more vulnerable parts. I like the way this allows for bonds to be created quickly. I see complementarity with the VD process of getting to know the fullness of a part from the inside out, so that the client can access energetic freedom and have more choice regarding the way they want to use parts in their daily life through the DJ process.
Alongside the potency of this new stance, the “Self,” I can also feel the energy created by the inner relating between a part and the Self. 1+1=3. I experience this energy as a release, a relaxation, and an integrated bond that itself feels nourishing and empowering for my ‘psyche’ or ‘inner world.’
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We both see this exploration and comparison as an ongoing process, and we welcome your comments and collaboration in our journey. We plan to take mixing these practices on the road for future events so stay tuned!
